The English Church in the Nineteenth Century (1800-1833) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1894. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER X. Intercourse With Sister Churches. Ireland. It may not be strictly correct--at least from the statesman's point of view--to speak of the Church of Ireland as a " sister Church," because the same Acts which made England and Ireland, from January i, 1801, one united kingdom, made also the two national Churches one united Church; but inasmuch as the union of the two Churches lasted barely seventy years, inasmuch as it was effected solely by the Acts of Parliament, or rather of both Parliaments, English and Irish, without any sort of reference to synod or convocation, that is, without consulting the spiritualty of either kingdom,1 it is at least pardonable, as it is certainly more convenient, to speak of "the Irish Church," instead of using the awkward periphrasis of "the Irish branch of the United Church of England and Ireland." So accurate a writer and so sound a Churchman as Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln, makes no scruple about denominating it the Irish Church when he writes both during and concerning the time when the union was in force; and Bishop Wordsworth's is a good name for a Churchman to shelter himself under.2 Irish Churchmen, as a rule, anticipated with pleasure the closer connection with their brother Churchmen across the Channel which the union seemed to promise; nor were they, at any rate until the last year or two of the period, disappointed. 1 See The Reformed Church of Ireland, by the Right Hon. J. T. Ball, p. 223; and The Church of Ireland, by the Rev. T. Olden (National Churches Series), P-393 See Wordsworth's History of the Church of Ireland, passim. It is a remarkable fact that, although the Oxford Movement found few sympathizers in Ireland, not a few of its most obvious precursors were connected with the Chur...